My name is Tammy Middleton and one day while my children and I were searching for different things on the net, we found this location and hoped that maybe you could help my children solve their mystery of who they are.

Not much is known from their side of the Lagasse family as most are dead or they no longer live in our state of Virginia and their father left us with no form of contact or link to the Lagasse past.

All I know is that the Lagasses from their side came from Rhode Island. My childrens father’s name is Thomas Earl Lagasse, Jr. and his father was of course Thomas, Sr. and his father was Roy Lagasse.

Roy had another son named David Lagasse, one brother named Earl Lagasse who was living in the Florida area, and one sister named Ester.

If this links with your family or Emeril’s please contact us as my children would dearly love to know about their past and if course if they are related to Emeril.

We love his show and somehow it makes my children feel special as if their name could really mean something instead of just a name in the dark with no past and no future to past on to their children.

Thank you for your time.

Tammy Middleton

I sent Tammy an e-mail but it bounced back…

I can understand why because she posted her message in 2001.

The chances are quite slim that Tammy is right now reading my blog so is Emeril Lagasse…

I was wondering if this Thomas Maloy, next to Patrick, could be your Thomas Maloy.

Yes Patricia, Patrick Maloy and Thomas Maloy are related to you, and they lived in Malmaison. But they were not the only ones who lived there.

MALMAISON – (DES RIVIERES STATION) Malmaison post office is about half a mile from the Des Rivières Station of the Central Vermont Railway. It is pleasantly situated on the shores of the Pike River, parish of Notre Dame des Anges, township of Stanbridge. Population, including Des Rivières Station, about 175.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

History Lesson

France has been home to many ethnic groups, including Celts, Germans, Romans and Greeks.Julius Caesar brought Roman culture and the Latin language to Gaul [which covered most of western Europe] when he conquered it in 59 BC. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, a Germanic tribe [the Franks] captured some of the region. It later became part of Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire. The country of France was a monarchy from then until the French Revolution in 1789, after which Napoleon became premier consul of the new French Republic. He crowned himself emporer of France in 1804 and reigned until 1815, when the monarchy was restored under Louis XVIII. Today, France has a bicameral legislature, a president and prime minister.During the 17th and 19th centuries, France was a religious battleground torn apart by warring elements of the predominantly Catholic population and its much smaller Protestant flock. Although laws called for tolerance, Protestant emigration siphoned off talented craftsmen. Though such turbulent episodes spurred some immigration to America, the French didn’t come en masse like other ethnic groups … they arrived in trickles rather than floods.In 1608, Samuel de Champlain formed North America’s first permanent French colony in Quebec. La Nouvelle France [New France] was based in Canada with a string of settlements along the Mississippi River. Protestants fleeing persecution in France were banned from New France; many went to the British Colonies. By the American Revolution, New France had an estimated population of 80,000, compared to 1.5 million in Britain’s 13 Colonies.

During the French Revolution from 1789-1799, thousands of political refugees left for the United States. Another immigration wave occured during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, when France lost its Alsace-Lorraine region. Many in this group settled in New York New Orleans and Chicago.

Following the American Civil War [1861-1865] the United States saw an increase in French Canadian immigration, most frequently into Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island. Our ancestors, Jean-Baptiste Morin and his wife Julie (Lareau) immigrated from Canada to Lee, Berkshire, MA in December 1871.

The 1930 census revealed that more than 135,000 US residents were French natives. The total French immigration from 1820 onward is about 750,000.